Machinations of the Force
by skywalker05
Summary: ZoidsStar Wars crossover! Luke detects a Force sensitive kid on the Blitz team...
1. Chapter 1

Machinations of the Force

_I began this a few years ago, and it is not completed. My renoticing of Zoids fanfic dug it out. The chapters will be short, my memory of this fandom rather bad currently, and reviews and/or enjoyment greatly apreciated. _

The Force flowed through a landscape of stars, peaceful in its stillness. A green, brown, white and blue planet was suspended below, touched or tainted with the intelligent presence of one who could, with time, wield the power that held the galaxy together. The planet orbited its small, yellow sun alone with only two moons accompanying it in a remote system off the Tingel arm of the galaxy.

A silver X-Wing fighter moved slowly from within the shadow of a moon and down toward the planet.

It had never happened like this before, a presence just appearing strong and bright out of hyperspace. For the past long standard months, Luke Skywalker had been searching for the remnants of the Jedi Knights. Rumors of sorcery, extraordinary luck or physical prowess had led Master Skywalker to those endowed like himself, those sons and daughters and cousins and clones and long forgotten descendants of the Knights of legend.

It had been a quick, trivial negotiation that had taken Luke to this edge of the galaxy, then the presence for which he had pulled out of hyperspace early.

"R2." He said. "Give me readings for the planet. I don't know what's down there yet, but there's something..." The presence eddied through the vastly familiar roilings of the Force, but this was territory far from the sources of the Republic, and even in these days of peace with the Empire there was danger. The resurrection of the spirit of Exar Kun was a reminder of that, and within recent and painful memory.

An article from a Republic database appeared before Luke, text and the slowly rotating holo-image of the planet.

Zi, he read, was its designation, it had but one spaceport, and it had joined the old Republic then broken contact with the advent of the Empire. It had no native species and had been colonized by humans.

The presence of a Jedi candidate was like a calling. And the Force was with Luke; the presence came from the spaceport.

The X-Wing started down.


	2. Chapter 2

Bit Cloud was tense within the cockpit of a virtual reality Command Wolf. The grid of green-tinted landscape visible between the metal and plastic simulator walls held an enemy Command Wolf, an anonymous fellow city-goer that had, so far, evaded Bit's every attack.

Bit eased his Zoid forward, watching-there, there was the other unit, running soundlessly behind a row of blocky CG trees. Fast, Bit turned to face the other sim, locked onto it and fired two quick bursts into its side. It datatized. A congratulation appeared over the VR screen, then the cockpit pod opened and Bit again was in the mall complex at Kieran's Landing.

As Bit climbed out of his pod, a smile forming on his face for the tough victory, he watched his opponent's pod. A kid was emerging. He looked to be only twelve or thirteen, with long dark hair and brown eyes. He looked absolutely crushed by his defeat, head down, pulling his heavy jacket around himself as he looked for a swift way through the crowd gathered around the mock battlefield.

"Hey." Bit approached the boy. "You're pretty good."

"Thanks." Then the kid found an opening in the dispersing crowd and moved away. Bit followed, noticing when the kid pilot stood at a food stand near where Jaime and Brad of the Blitz Team sat. Bit joined his teammates there.

"So did you win?" Brad asked.

"Yeah." Bit said. "I beat that kid." He gestured to him. Brad nodded. And furtively, the young pilot came over to their table and looked from one to the other before speaking. "You're the Blitz Team, right?"

"Yeah." Bit said.

"Wow...Ahm, I'm Dax Ransha. I, ah, I need a team. For Zoids. I mean-"

"Relax." Brad said, gruffly. "Sit down."

Dax Ransha pulled a chair around to where he stood and sat, put his hands flat on the white plastic and said, "I pilot a Redler. I want to join a team."

Bit, Jaime and Brad looked at each other. There was a space for a fifth pilot on the team, but it wasn't really _needed. _

"He's good." Bit offered, lowering his voice toward his team.

"In a sim, yeah." Brad said quietly.

"A Redler's a dragon type aerial Zoid." Jaime said. "I've never piloted one, but heard they have average capabilities. They used to be used a lot in the military."

"I'm looking for a better Zoid." Dax said, stopping the surreptitious conversation.

"No, that's okay," Bit started. He thought he knew how Dax felt, wanting so much to be a pilot.

"Look at this!" Doc Tauros, the founder of the Blitz team, collapsed into the chair next to Dax, spilling boxes of model Zoid units onto the table. "A Bear Fighter, a Dark Spiner, a _Konig Wolf_...look!"

Leena came up behind her father and dragged a chair over from another table. "That's _our _prize money you just spent, Dad."

"Oh, I'll repay you, don't worry...oh, hello." Doc noticed Dax. "You are..."

"Dax Ransha."

"Steve Tauros. This is Leena, Bit, Brad, I guess you know them, you're a pilot?"

"Yeah..."

"Great! Come to the base with us this afternoon, we'll see what you can do. Bit, would you mind--" The piles of models were pushed in Bit's direction and Doc got up again.

"Hey Doc. Take your hobby money out of your own pocket, not ours." Brad called, but Doc was off again.

Dax followed him with his eyes. "Is your team always like this?"


	3. Chapter 3

_Much thanks to **F-14 Tomcat Lover **for his equally rare reviews. _

Kieran's Landing was a city of white, modern buildings, where speeders and wheeled ground cars rushed through the clean, thin streets and brightly colored large droids patterned after animals stood stationary or prowled the traffic lanes with the other vehicles. Their name and purpose was instantly evident; they were called Zoids, and they fought gladiatorial battles projected on screens throughout the city and its establishments. Mild desert heat wafted from outside the city where, in a bleak contrast to the life here, mostly deserted roads of darker ground led out through the tan-brown sand.

There was not one ship at the spaceport. Traffic controllers guided Luke in and took his name and status as a citizen of the Galactic Republic, but seemed hesitant and unfamiliar with procedures for docking. Mostly it was Zoids that used the bowl shaped docking bays as hangers.

The person he was searching for was in a bustling common complex, a mall, where visitors engaged in virtual reality games, talked and watched the Zoid battles. All he saw were humans, speaking of things he did not understand in slightly accented Basic.

From his first experiencing it, Luke had known the carrier of the presence to be strong in the Force, but completely untrained. He had not, though, expected one so young as the boy sitting there in front of a vender's stand chatting with four older people about something technical and hard to follow, an excited and quick-minded youth.

Luke cautiously approached the five, resettling his cloak about his shoulders, unsure of how to begin with these members of a society so based on the intricacies of their Zoid's combat.

"The Stormsorter is the strongest aerial unit." A short, dark, spiky-haired teen was saying, and the conversation took that tack, volleying among talk of Zoids and capabilities as compared to the hale Stormsorter.

"You have a Stormsorter?" Luke asked, looking down at the group, then at the Force-sensitive being before returning his gaze to the dark one he had asked the question to.

"No," The Zoid pilot replied. "I've got a Raynos. Do _you _have a Stormsorter?"

"No." Luke said. "I'm not a pilot." He pulled a chair over--a quick gesture, they all probably missed it, though to the one who knew, the angle that hid the inches between his hand and the chair would not hide it at all-and sat down. Now looking fully at the one he had came for, he asked, "Have you heard of the Jedi Knights?"

They looked from one to the other, unknowledgeable. The tallest asked, in a dark voice, "Who are you?"

"Luke Skywalker." He leaned over toward the Force-sensitive. "You've never heard of them? No rumors, no fairy tales, no horror stories..."

The oldest one and the girl were tense, the others, including the Force-sensitive, curious. Another man was coming up behind them,

"Jedi Knights? Here, Bit, hold, this." Luke sat up and turned around. It was an older man with frizzy gray hair, holding multiple boxes like the models in front of Bit, apparently one of the younger pilots. The man piled those he held with the others and looked at Luke. "You've done research on Jedi? I was looking at something the other day about a temple dug up on Nyx, up north,"

"I am a Jedi Knight." Luke said.

The man was even more confused then the others. The magenta-haired girl touched his arm,

"Dad, isn't that..."

"What?" Bit asked.

Luke waited for the explanation. _A temple dug up on Nyx _implied ruins of old Jedi only.

"They were ancient Zoidians, sorcerers with unusual powers over Zoids and people. Or that's what they say, I don't know," He turned to Luke. "You're one?"

This was a far-Rim planet, but apparently it _had_ left galactic society...and had never returned or cared about the goings-on within it. "Yes." Luke said. He lowered his voice. If the answer was no, the results of his question could cause problems larger then those he was ready to deal with. "Have you ever been off planet?"

"Off...no. No." The man looked uneasy for a moment, looking around at the young men and woman that were his charges or companions, then looked back and said, "I'm Doc Tauros. Come out to our HoverCargo, we better talk. Dax, you bring your Redler, let's get outta here."


	4. Chapter 4

Before Luke, on a flat screen portraying the skies above Kieran's Landing, Dax's testing was beginning. As a pilot, the Jedi was amazed by the skill of Dax and the aerial Zoid expert, Jaime Homero, and the manufacture of the Zoid units themselves. It was a fast, spinning battle as the krayt-esque Redler and thin-winged green Raynos broke the sound barrier every few seconds, rippling in the heat from the desert plains. No weapons were fired. Doc Tauros and the two pilots had agreed to a practice system where a computer lock counted as a hit, and five hits as a win.

Jaime had three hits, and Dax two.

The rest of the Blitz team; Doc, his daughter Leena, Bit, and Brad, sat below the level where Luke stood beside the screen, in the team common room. Luke could have joined them, but didn't want to; the showing of Dax's skills was a chance to think on the events of his brief stay on planet Zi.

Dax had no desire to join the _praxeum_; he had no knowledge of it and was much enamored with the occupation of Zoid pilot. Luke had to admit he wanted to try out one of the Zoid units, though they were simply ground-based; they were like Imperial walkers taken to the extreme and used in a sport as popular as podracing on Tatooine.

On the screen the Redler dove upon the Raynos for a moment, and a red circle around the Raynos indicated another score. Jaime's voice came through speakers above the screen;

"I'm coming down. You're in, Dax. Doc, you agree?"

"Yes!"

"He's not bad." Brad said. Luke nodded, half watching those around him. When Dax and Jaime returned, he would speak to the group of the Jedi. There had not been much time in the short ride by groundcar to the Blitz team headquarters. But an audience had been promised him by Doc Tauros, and his plan was to tell Doc and Dax of the reality of the Jedi and the greater galaxy.

But them only, and if Dax said no, Luke would leave this planet to itself. He was no first-contact specialist or appointed Republic man to give news of an unknown galaxy-wide civilization to these people who had had it once and did not now.

But the pilots that were the object of his plan did not return. Jaime was working on his Zoid, and Dax staying with him. Luke accompanied Bit to the hanger of the strange repulsor-dwelling called the HoverCargo, where the team's five Zoids rested. Jaime was atop his Raynos scrubbing its metal skin with soap and water while Dax watched him from the bowed head of the Redler, a four-legged, thin-winged metal dragon. Beside them were a heavily armed saurian and a blue, thin unit modeled after something four-footed, then Bit's Liger Zero, the white feline. Bit greeted it when he entered the hanger, then called up to Jaime. And through their banter about the battle past, Luke watched the Liger and realized that it may be watching him back.

In the Force it was a strong-willed presence, alive neither in the way an AI or droid was nor in the way a person was but somewhere in between, alertness in a clear mind. As Luke touched its thoughts he knew the Zoid knew he was doing it, and that was very, very strange...

"Mister Skywalker." Tauros's voice brought Luke out of his contemplation of this creature, this Zoid that was more than machine. "You wanted to talk to us?"

"Yes," Luke said, but Bit and Jaime were still here. So he would keep it quiet and quick for now, and later if Dax asked for more information he would answer. Dax, Bit, and Tauros stood around Luke at the Liger's feet and Jaime watched from the head of his Zoid as Luke spoke like he would to young students at the academy;

"I am a Jedi Knight. A long time ago their order was begun to protect the people, but that was destroyed. Now I am trying to rebuild that order, by finding people that have the gift, that can sense the Force. The Force is the energy, the source of a Jedi's power, the fuel of life."

"Sounds like some kind of weird religion." Bit said.

Luke shook his head, found the Force and caught a cloth from beside Jaime as it flew into his hand. "It is more than that," he said, "Much more." He handed the cloth to Dax, and the boy's eyes were wide in awe.


	5. Chapter 5

V

It was Brad's dispassion that aided Luke, while Bit went into hysterics at the very thought.

The Zoids's--Command Wolf's--controls were simply logical, though numerous. It showed none of the intellect of Bit's precious Liger Zero, only greater droid-like empathy due to the fluidly animal characteristics. In the ride up the HoverCargo's turbolift Luke centered himself in the Force and the machine's cockpit just as before any space battle.

The Zoids fight was held four enemy units against Blitz Team's four, lasting until all of one team was eliminated as determined by the judge, a droid. Repair for the giant machines came easily with winning credits; much of the sparsely populated (compared to Core worlds, at least) planet's industry was interested in Zoids manufacture and repair. The Jedi had desperately wanted this experience, as he had not wanting something new in quite a while.

The two teams faced each other for a moment; Luke, Bit, Dax, Leena and their opponents with the Zoids two yellow Zaber Fangs, a Redler, and a hulking Gordos. The droids judge shouted its readiness.

Luke's starting position set him across from a Zaber Tiger, and as son as the 'fight' command released them it charged toward him. With lightsaber-combat strategy and reflex he stepped Brad's Zoid unit aside and stitched a line of damage across the enemy's flank with the bulky double laser cannon. (Laser technology seemed to be a single place where the world Zi fell inferior to galactic average, and some Zoids including Leena's used slugthrower projectiles.) The heavy animal-machine stopped in his view as sparks and smoke rained up from it.

Then it burst out again, quicker than physics shoulder permit, and slammed its thick feline head into the Command Wolf's neck. Luke's controls at this proximity switched for close combat tactics, and as he searched the cockpit for the correct sequence the Zaber Fang's weight pressed on his less massive unit, its head maneuvering to bite something essential. Luke found the charged bite of the Command Wolf and activated it--another Zaber Fang stepped out from behind a spire of rock. Leena's Gun Sniper emerged from another rock obstruction beside it, head lowered, and unloaded swarms of missile, slugthrower bullets, and flak at it. It was engulfed in smoke, and Luke's opponent stepped back a few paces from both Blitz team units.

Luke's Command Wolf leapt forward and du its electricity-laced teeth into the Zaber Fang's neck workings just behind the armored headpiece. The Zaber's huge legs collapsed; the cockpit went darker.

Luke pressed their holocomm connection's toggle. "Thanks, Leena."

"No problem!" She laughed wildly, and the Gun Sniper stalked off.

In the sky the two Redlers clattered their small guns at one another and twisted, dove, reversed; dogfighting with each other and gravity. Bit had already taken out some of the reptilian Gordos' systems, and Luke urged his Zoid toward them, glorying in the ground it covered. _I could get into this, _he thought, and smiled.

In an open area of deserted land the bronze Gordos swung its thick tail toward Bit's crouching Zoid. Liger Zero jumped the tail, skidded to the Gordos' other side, and fired at it from under Liger's roaring mouth. Shots rocked the Gordos but it remained active.

The Command Wolf's subsystems' triumphant howl and roar from elsewhere as Leena fired at the tumbling enemy Redler filled Luke's ears next to the full, lonely awareness of the Force. The Gordos pilot momentarily turned his attention to Luke, rapidly aiming a sputtering shoulder cannon as it also turned to again swipe the Liger with its tail. Luke pumped his cannons toward the front feet and the ground below the cockpit--Liger Zero rose into the air and came down, over the Gordos with its squared claws growing yellow with electricity. It gouged sideways and stumbled on the landing but regained its footing and stood--while the Gordos lay damaged, upraised plates and machinery-viscera of the back lying torn beside Liger Zero and Bit.

Dax's Redler landed securely behind Luke. The droid judge announced the Blitz Team's success.


End file.
